'Over the last year and change, you may have noticed an occasional mysterious allusion to some project I was working on but wasn't ready to discuss. Well, today I am very proud to announce that it's my new book, "The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever."

The book tells the story of this new golden age of drama we're lucky enough to be experiencing, through the prism of a dozen shows from the last 15 years: in chapter order, "Oz," "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Deadwood," "The Shield," "Lost," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "24," "Battlestar Galactica," "Friday Night Lights," "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad." It's a mix of critical analysis and history, featuring interviews — the great majority of them new — with the creators of these shows and other key people who worked on them. Each chapter discusses both the greatness of that particular show and the way it contributed to this creative revolution. (The Shield, for instance, ended HBO's monopoly on this kind of show.) I've got David Chase discussing the end of The Sopranos (not explaining it, mind you, but discussing why he chose to do it that way), Damon Lindelof on the Lost origin story, David Milch on the beginning and end of Deadwood, and a whole lot more.'

Rereading Gun Work by David J. Schow. What an absolutely excellent writer that hardly anyone talks about. His Internecine and Upgunned are awesome as well. His next book is described as "Parker-like" and, obviously, I am awaiting it with delicious anticipation. So far the title or release date isn't out yet but hopefully there'll be some news soon.

Schow's work also strays into what is called "Gun Porn", which is fiction that has extremely detailed and accurate descriptions of firearms and shooting.

One of the best tv critics out there, Alan Sepinwal, has written a book, 'HOW THE REVOLUTION WAS TELEVISED', about 10 shows - mostly crime related - gave us the golden age. Quite cheap on Kindle:http://m.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/whats-alan-writing-a-new-book-called-the-revolution-was-televised
'Over the last year and change, you may have noticed an occasional mysterious allusion to some project I was working on but wasn't ready to discuss. Well, today I am very proud to announce that it's my new book, "The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever."
The book tells the story of this new golden age of drama we're lucky enough to be experiencing, through the prism of a dozen shows from the last 15 years: in chapter order, "Oz," "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Deadwood," "The Shield," "Lost," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "24," "Battlestar Galactica," "Friday Night Lights," "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad." It's a mix of critical analysis and history, featuring interviews — the great majority of them new — with the creators of these shows and other key people who worked on them. Each chapter discusses both the greatness of that particular show and the way it contributed to this creative revolution. (The Shield, for instance, ended HBO's monopoly on this kind of show.) I've got David Chase discussing the end of The Sopranos (not explaining it, mind you, but discussing why he chose to do it that way), Damon Lindelof on the Lost origin story, David Milch on the beginning and end of Deadwood, and a whole lot more.'

Surprised CHUCK isn't in there since the producers credit him with saving the show after season 2. I also think Chuck was terrific.

I don't much care for Scandinavian crime novels. They're good, for sure, at least most, but there are too many dour police procedurals. I prefer the books like Jo Nesbo's hilarious and dark Headhunters. Like Dave, I like the robbers, not the cops.

Jens Lapidus's Easy Money(Or as I like to call it by its original Swedish title, Snabba Cash) is the first of a trilogy in Stockholm's underworld. One narrative is a Spanish criminal in prison where he's plotting to break out and take revenge on the partners that flipped him. JW, a college student who wants to run with the rich kids, and Mrado, the hulking muscle behind a Yugoslavian crime boss and is making power moves of his own.

It has a quick and tough voice very much like Ellroy's(Who blurbed it), but feels like his older, more readable books. Lapidus is a top and experienced criminal lawyer in Stockholm, so he knows about the world he talks about. It reaches for the stars, unlike most crime novels. I won't be surprised if it's on several top ten lists.

Sounds good. I love underworld crime stories, especially those in a new locale. I will put it on my ridiculously long reading list.
Ever since watching Branagh's WALLANDER - and a couple of the Swedish episodes - I've been meaning to read some Nordic crime.

Try Headhunters. It's about a corporate headhunter who is insanely insecure with short man complex..and he moon-lights as an art thief. Very funny, very dark.

Still, the biggest surprise of the year for me is Joe Abercrombie's Red Country. I never read his trilogy and this book is set in the same world, but I have no problem following it and it works wonderfully as a western. And thanks to True Grit, I keep seeing Lamb, the man with the mysterious and violent past, as Jeff Bridges.

Cameron's right--Headhunters is great. The film adaptation was one of my favorite films from last year.

As for Cameron's comment about how we both prefer the robbers: I love Donald Westlake's comment about why he preferred to write about criminals rather than law enforcement types. He said it was because criminals have very limited resources and they are going up against monumental opponents--the Police, F.B.I., even other criminals. I find this underdog aspect attractive, as I do the sense that criminals are rebels who refuse to play by society's rules and regulations.

Well, I sent in my best of the year list to January Magazine. It should be up late December.

No, I'm not going to tell you what's on it. Readers of this thread might have good guesses though. I don't know who the others picked, so I'm holding my own close to my chest.

I wanted to include Megan Abbot's High School cheerleader noir(Yeah, you read that right) Dare Me, Lehane's gangster drama Live by Night, David Rich's con man drama Caravan of Thieves and Wolf Haas's German dramedy Brenner and God, but simply didn't have the room, but I'm happy with what I ended up with and I'm sure a couple of those books, at least a couple, will end up on somebody else's list. Won't be surprised if Rath/Leonard has Dare Me on his.

Will say one thing, I bet Warren Ellis's Gun Machine will end up on my 2013 list.

Dare Me was good but it came after the incendiary End of Everything. I came away from Dare Me with a new kind of respect for Cheerleaders, it's clear Ms. Abbott felt the same way.

It's the lesser novel, but still really good. I honestly never thought I'd read High School cheerleader noir.

Read the novel Cheer! by Kate Torgovnick, it was the book that the CW One Season Wonder show Hellcats was based on and it was really good. If they had followed the book, the show would have been more Friday Night Lights for cheerleaders. Sex! Eating disorders! Drugs!

I'm interested in seeing how that Cogan's Trade movie turns out. It's a dialogue heavy book, so it's interesting to see how they adapt it to screen. It could almost be a play.

It felt almost apocalyptic. I've never read the book so I can't compare the two but I will say Dominik shot this in some really desolate urban locations and it looked thoroughly gritty as a result. Through Jackie Cogan, the film operates on a supremely cynical view about the state of modern business (crime included) but it's worth seeing.

Out of all my 2012 favorites, I think the biggest surprise was Carsten Stroud's Niceville. I made comparisons in my write-up to Lynch's Twin Peaks, not because they're both about small quirky towns with a dark side and history but because the creators both came from different places. Lynch came from small independent dramas to a dramedy on a firmly mainstream network and Stroud was known for tough as nails thrillers and a good true crime novel and now he's written a quirky crime novel about the dark side of a small town. I love it, I want more books about Niceville, past or present. I don't like his politics, but they aren't in this book and if I chose my entertainment based on the personalities of those involved*, I'd have very little entertainment in my life.

*If I did this, I'd have to watch Family Guy and not the far superior and smarter as well as funnier South Park because I agree more with McFarlane's opinions* and not Parker and Stone. I don't like Vince Flynn or Brad Thor just because they're rabidly conservative (my dad is a Republican, but he is sane. He thinks women should have a choice over their own body and that gays are just like the rest of society and deserve the same rights, my dad is a kind man and taught me how to be decent) but because they're bad writers.

*I'm really turned off and offended for my more religious friends when McFarlane says you have to be an idiot to be religious. South Park doesn't like (organized) religion any better but they manage to tell a funny story and not just preach.

Being a wingnut doesn't make you a bad writer; in fact, it may give you that extra little push from good to great.

That said, Stroud gets no more of my bucks.

Quote:

We will not win by surrendering. We should not have ceded the universities, the media, and our children to the unthinking fatuities and vacuous pieties of the chattering classes. But we did. So now we stop doing that. I used to disagree politely. From now on I am going to nail their asses to a door. As often as necessary. With glee. And, as "Jimmy Carter" so elegantly stated, I will "get my ass back in the saddle"! Be well all and thanks for rallying. Thanksgiving is near. Pull your families together, circle the wagons, praise God, lock-and-load, and don't forget to be thankful for the America we all built together.

Being a wingnut doesn't make you a bad writer; in fact, it may give you that extra little push from good to great.

That said, Stroud gets no more of my bucks.

Ew, that's really ugly. Thank God for writers like Charlie Stella, who I know is a Republican but stays sane and nice. He wrote the best Mafia novel in years with Johnny Porno. Dude deserves such a bigger audience. That, and Richard Marinick's Boston Irish mob novel Boyos are my favorite Mafia* stories ever.

*I don't really consider Don's Frankie Machine a Mafia novel. My opinion on that is hard to articulate, but it's more the story of one guy rather than an ensemble drama like Johnny Porno and Boyos.

Re-watched Sin City today. It's not a great movie and Clive Owen is seriously mis-cast as Dwight, but it's fun, the best part being Marv's story (The best story from the comics too. Miller's art is gorgeous in the books) and Rourke is great, looking like he just stepped out of the comic, hamming it up and being genuinely cool too. He looked more comfortable saying Miller's uber-Mickey Spillane dialogue than the other actors too. I liked Rosario Dawson too, she was feral and sexy as hell and looked comfortable too. Nick Stahl was suitably creepy.I think Miller has...issues with women, but not in Sin City where everyone, except maybe Nancy the stripper, is fucked up.

Fun to see Elijah Wood as the cannibal serial killer ninja Kevin, doing a good job making you forget that he was Frodo so soon after FOTR.

Re-watched Sin City today. It's not a great movie and Clive Owen is seriously mis-cast as Dwight, but it's fun, the best part being Marv's story (The best story from the comics too. Miller's art is gorgeous in the books) and Rourke is great, looking like he just stepped out of the comic, hamming it up and being genuinely cool too. He looked more comfortable saying Miller's uber-Mickey Spillane dialogue than the other actors too. I liked Rosario Dawson too, she was feral and sexy as hell and looked comfortable too. Nick Stahl was suitably creepy.I think Miller has...issues with women, but not in Sin City where everyone, except maybe Nancy the stripper, is fucked up.

Fun to see E;lijah Wood as the cannibal serial killer ninja Kevin, doing a good job making you forget that he was Frodo so soon after FOTR.

I liked Sin City quite a bit. I'm just getting into the comics and agree Owen was miscast as Dwight, but other than that I felt the film was awesome--I'll definitely be adding the Blu-Ray edition to my collection and hoping the next installment comes out in theaters sometime soon--it's supposed to be an adaptation of A Dame to Kill For.

I liked Sin City quite a bit. I'm just getting into the comics and agree Owen was miscast as Dwight, but other than that I felt the film was awesome--I'll definitely be adding the Blu-Ray edition to my collection and hoping the next installment comes out in theaters sometime soon--it's supposed to be an adaptation of A Dame to Kill For.

Being a wingnut doesn't make you a bad writer; in fact, it may give you that extra little push from good to great.

That said, Stroud gets no more of my bucks.

Public libraries are your friend. I'd go broke if I bought everything I read.

I've been playing Max Payne 3, and it's easily the best crime game, in terms of narrative, I've ever played. The hangover effects are quite authentic, down to the little details like wearing shitty, wrinkled suits to work. It definitely retains the noir elements of 2, but without being overwrought.

Higgiins lovers should really track down one of his last novels The Agent. It''s the sports agency world of Jerry Maguire with testicles and the teeth of a hungry shark. The murder mystery of an agent everyone hates is interesting, but it's the suits and corporate side of the sports world you read it for, Higgins treats it just like his criminal worlds from The Friends of Eddie Coyle and Cogan's Trade.

Speaking of book costs, huge deal on Block's non-franchise works on Amazon. Like less than the cost of a candy bar for his early, pre-Scudder stuff.

A ton of Mysterious Press/Open Road e-books appear to be part of the sale - in addition to Block, there are a number of other thread favorites, super-cheap. I noticed some Westlake Dortmunders, Winslow's Neal Carey series, Edward Bunker, Loren Estleman, and Ross Thomas, among others. I grabbed most of J. Robert Janes' St. Cyr & Kohler WWII mysteries for two bucks each.

Yeah, it was a bit of a spin on the cop-on-the-edge flick, but with a 70s vibe...Enjoyable and with a good performance by Bridges in its own right. Tough to reconcile it with the novels but I would love a good blu-ray.

I don't really believe them, but I always like a good conspiracy theory. Well, the good ones, birthers and 9/11 Truthers can go to hell. I'm talking about secret societies, MiB, Kennedy assassinations, (My favorite JFK one? Elaborate suicide) the moon landing and Area 51. I also love Weekly World News. Justin Robinson's Mr. Blank is a thriller that's like candy for the conspiracy theorist with loads of Easter eggs. It's about the mysterious "Guy" of "They" that we've all mentioned at least once that makes things keep going and has connections to just about everything and somebody is trying to kill him. It's very funny and quick with great pop culture references, both easy to spot and obscure. What sold me? Monsters like Bigfoot, called Cryptids, exist, but vampires are a complete myth.

I don't really believe them, but I always like a good conspiracy theory. Well, the good ones, birthers and 9/11 Truthers can go to hell. I'm talking about secret societies, MiB, Kennedy assassinations, (My favorite JFK one? Elaborate suicide) the moon landing and Area 51. I also love Weekly World News. Justin Robinson's Mr. Blank is a thriller that's like candy for the conspiracy theorist with loads of Easter eggs. It's about the mysterious "Guy" of "They" that we've all mentioned at least once that makes things keep going and has connections to just about everything and somebody is trying to kill him. It's very funny and quick with great pop culture references, both easy to spot and obscure. What sold me? Monsters like Bigfoot, called Cryptids, exist, but vampires are a complete myth.

Just bought Mr. Blank for my Kindle. After reading a couple of pages of the free preview, I knew this author and I were on the same wavelength. I was laughing in a knowing way that only someone who's been around and interacted with other Conspiracy Buffs could.;-) Dang it, Cameron, you hooked me again. You've caused me to abuse my debit card more than my last two girlfriends!;-) lol

Another writer I'm finding extremely funny is John Vorhaus, creator of Grifter Extraordinaire Radar Hoverlander. Radar has appeared in two novels thus far; The California Roll and The Albuquerque Turkey. Vorhaus is fast becoming one of my favorite new writers of Criminal Procedurals, as these books display Radar's gift for the snuke and grift. Highly recommended.

Just bought Mr. Blank for my Kindle. After reading a couple of pages of the free preview, I knew this author and I were on the same wavelength. I was laughing in a knowing way that only someone who's been around and interacted with other Conspiracy Buffs could.;-) Dang it, Cameron, you hooked me again. You've caused me to abuse my debit card more than my last two girlfriends!;-) lol

Another writer I'm finding extremely funny is John Vorhaus, creator of Grifter Extraordinaire Radar Hoverlander. Radar has appeared in two novels thus far; The California Roll and The Albuquerque Turkey. Vorhaus is fast becoming one of my favorite new writers of Criminal Procedurals, as these books display Radar's gift for the snuke and grift. Highly recommended.

Just bought Mr. Blank for my Kindle. After reading a couple of pages of the free preview, I knew this author and I were on the same wavelength. I was laughing in a knowing way that only someone who's been around and interacted with other Conspiracy Buffs could.;-) Dang it, Cameron, you hooked me again. You've caused me to abuse my debit card more than my last two girlfriends!;-) lol

Another writer I'm finding extremely funny is John Vorhaus, creator of Grifter Extraordinaire Radar Hoverlander. Radar has appeared in two novels thus far; The California Roll and The Albuquerque Turkey. Vorhaus is fast becoming one of my favorite new writers of Criminal Procedurals, as these books display Radar's gift for the snuke and grift. Highly recommended.

I met Justin today at a local book event. Nice guy, encyclopedia of pop culture knowledge that's entertaining and interesting rather than kind of sad like Ready Player One's Ernest Cline. Probably gonna interview him.

Just finishes motherless and really loved it. Great mix of genre and smarts.

Reading some early Leonard now. Just started Freaky Deaky.

One of my favorite Easter eggs ever is in Out of Sight where a character is related to the drug dealer that's trapped on a bomb at the beginning of Freaky Deaky. Leonard does a lot of references like that. The Marshall Sisco Detective Agency is mentioned in Cat Chaser years before Out of Sight came out.